


Posh Drunk

by Marmosette



Series: Drunk Mycroft [3]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Drinking, Drunk Mycroft Holmes, Drunkenness, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-11
Updated: 2018-07-11
Packaged: 2019-06-09 00:09:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15255096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marmosette/pseuds/Marmosette
Summary: "Just because Ai’m drunk—” he paused and covered his lips politely with the backs of two fingers—“doesn’t mean Ai’m schew-pid.”Continuing our survey of the many states of inebriation of Mycroft Holmes, we have the "posh drunk." He also continues to multitask with alacrity.





	Posh Drunk

“Just because Ai’m drunk—” he paused and covered his lips politely with the backs of two fingers—“doesn’t mean Ai’m schew-pid.”

 

Mycroft had several different voices—complete with accents—that came out in different situations. They were all varying degrees of real in that none of them was an actual, conscious lie.

There was his “talking about delicate matters in front of Sherlock” voice. This was very strictly polite, but never far from sarcasm. His accent for this one wasn’t quite as posh as an old-fashioned BBC News presenter, retaining the inexplicable touch of the North that Greg had never got an explanation for. Sherlock didn’t share it. Was it a school that Mycroft had attended and Sherlock hadn’t—was it found to be unsuitable? Then why had Mycroft stayed long enough to absorb an accent? Was it where the family had lived during formative years of Mycroft’s life, but which was abandoned before Sherlock got stuck in—Musgrave Hall, perhaps? In any case, it was even and controlled, ready to elevate into full sarcasm at the slightest flicker of the wrong emotion in Sherlock’s face.

There was his “talking about terrifying things with shadowy colleagues” voice, which sounded like the narration of a sinister Gothic horror novel: calm, steady verging on monotone, bleak, and full-on Ice Man. It was the patience of a zombie that knows that eventually, you’re going to need to sleep, and it won’t. Greg usually overheard this in brief phrases on Mycroft’s end of a phone call. He wasn’t sure if this was a real voice or if it was just the effect of foreboding jargon mixed with nonsense phrases so that you absolutely knew that whatever he was talking about, you didn’t want to know any more about it. This was carefully Southern English, the hints of the North sanded off to keep it safely devoid of actual personality. It was the heart of the speeches Mycroft’s kidnapping victims heard.

There was his “annoyed with Sherlock” voice, which was seventy percent of what their immediate circle (John, Sherlock, Greg, Mrs Hudson, and the Holmes parents) heard. This was straight-up sarcasm and bitchery, melodramatic whining, and the odd snarl. This was Mycroft with his patience drained but before he was sure Sherlock was high. Any order, at any time, that Sherlock should grow up was snapped in this tone.

There was his jovial tone, which was a complete crap shoot. Sometimes he was genuinely jovial. It did happen. But sometimes he used this one to play good cop to his “talking about terrifying things” voice’s bad cop. And sometimes his sarcasm came out as jovial, which was like finding the crunchy chocolate bits on your ice cream were actually ground glass.

There was the voice Greg heard when they were alone and Mycroft was relaxed. Sherlock said that Mycroft was the professional talker, and that Mycroft never texted if he could talk, but this was a lie. Sherlock was the drama queen who loved to give long speeches about his deductions to his captivated audience. Mycroft, not Sherlock, was the member of the Diogenes Club where speaking was banned. But this voice was one of the few where Greg thought he could hear some similarity between the brothers: Sherlock’s smooth, deep rumble that could hypnotise a cat, and Mycroft’s relaxed velvet tones that only ever spoke the truth to Greg from the next pillow over. There was no guile, no conscious attempt to charm.

And there was his condescending, patronising arsehole voice. This took Received Pronunciation and cranked it up to House of Windsor. It was the rarest, the weirdest, and quite often Greg found it the funniest.

 

“I regret to inform you that your offer has been denied,” Mycroft said.

He was standing beside the small end table beside the armchair, hands in his trouser pockets, staring out the window behind the chair. When he heard no response, he looked down at the man in the chair beside him.

Surely it wasn’t normal for a politician to be so… _lean_. Muscled. Small, cold blue eyes, a sharp, prominent nose, receding hairline, greying. Even seeing his relaxed neck, Mycroft could see the lack of fat, the excess muscle. No one in politics—no one who deserved to hold an elected office—looked like this man. He was military. While people did move from armed service into politics, they usually found that there was so much to learn that they didn’t have time to keep up any kind of intensive fitness routine. This man’s body was clearly a priority, and nothing to do with his electorate mattered as much. Probably because his country’s elections were complete shams, and they had put a great deal of effort into ensuring that their rival’s elections were equally pointless. The entire world had become a ball of yarn for this particular kitten to bat around. The best Mycroft could hope for was that some of the yarn could be tangled around the kitten’s claws long enough for Mycroft to—so to speak—cut the yarn off and snatch the ball away.

“Mr. Holmes. My offer _stands_. You have failed to convey it correctly, and so it has not been _accepted_. Let us not hide behind lies.”

Mycroft tipped his head, mouth open as he took a breath, preparing his reply. “Your point of view is interesting, but not widely held. There are other ways to deal with the situation—ways which do not involve such underhanded methods.”

“Oh, yes. Honour is so important to you. A pity success and efficiency are not.”

“What seems successful and efficient in the short term will very likely prove to be debilitating and embarrassing in the mid-range, and catastrophic in the long term.”

The man, who had been staring into the fire with a faint smile as they spoke, suddenly took a deep breath and tipped his head back to look at Mycroft, his smile widening. “Perhaps I can persuade you—over vodka?”

That last part had been almost hopeful. People always assumed Russians would love their vodka, the French would love wine, the Scottish and Irish would prefer whiskey, Mexicans tequila… It was an easy mistake and was always forgiven. Mycroft wondered what the point was. If one couldn’t be bothered to learn the most basic and obvious preferences of one’s opponent, then negotiations would be absurd. But this particular Russian was known for disliking vodka—he preferred German beer, in fact. So why was he suggesting vodka?

Mycroft could think of one answer, and it was incredibly insulting. He knew a drinking competition could be a terrible idea, as he would certainly lose it. But Mycroft knew exactly what he was like when drunk, at every stage. His opponent didn’t. It was also entirely manageable, and while distasteful, it could prove successful and efficient in the long term, and the mid-range catastrophe could be managed with the help of someone trustworthy who had managed hangovers for his family before.

“You are certainly welcome to try.”

 

Round one:

“ _Za vstrechu._ ” _To our meeting._ Mycroft accepted the shot glass that was handed to him, so cold that the frost on the sides was bone-dry and sought to glue his skin to the glass. He tipped it back, letting it burn a hole down the back of his throat—simply a physical feeling, he reminded himself, his body wasn’t damaged, the sensation would pass. It was one of the finest vodkas made, and a distant corner of his mind was allowed to catalogue the taste and store it for appreciation later, should he be so inclined. “ _Tyepyer', ya schitayoo, vi hotyeli obyasnit' svoyoo pozitsiyoo_ …”

“Please, Mr. Holmes. My English is perfectly good.”

“Pardon me. Your position, then?”

“The man is an idiot. We have no interest in him beyond convenience. We need only watch, and wait.”

“Your approach is completely passive.”

“Unless you consider watching to be interference. Then I would have to object to your interference in _our_ elections.”

 

Round two:

“Please. I insist.”

“Of course.” The glass was moist this time, and the burn down his throat was familiar, the warmth of the last drink lingering. He blinked slowly, taking a breath of cool air to ease the heat and regretting it only mildly when the air brought out a second round of sensation. “Thank you.” His host’s shot was poured and consumed almost before Mycroft could blink. “We have no authority in such matters, nor would we seek to change that.”

“Your journalists have never presented a fair view of our enterprises.”

“Outside my purview, I’m afraid.”

 

Round three:

He knew it was coming. His glass wasn’t cold enough to make any difference anymore, and he had to keep his eyes open to notice that the clink of the bottle and splash of liquid that his host poured for himself was maybe half the amount Mycroft had just swallowed. He grit his teeth, his lips stretched wide in a futile attempt to avoid the experience.

His host noticed, inevitably, and laughed, the sound starting before his lips parted after taking his own drink. “We are burning through the layers, are we not?”

“It is certainly potent.”

“Perhaps this is a thaw in the Ice Man’s exterior. Spring in London, no?”

Mycroft gave him a wintry smile, hitched up his trouser legs, and sat down in the chair opposite him. “I’m a minor government official. Weather control is not in my purview.”

His opponent laughed, letting it trail off into what he may have hoped seemed a fond chuckle. “Maybe it is time to move on to more substantial matters.”

“Something more substantial than your country’s leadership? Well, well. Do go on.”

 

Round four:

He could accept his fate. He knew it was coming. This was the gambit he’d been offered, and he’d known what he was in for. At least it was good vodka—obliterating his brain with inferior pollutants would have been deeply unpleasant both after _and_ during. He slugged it back, pounded his glass down, and locked eyes with his opponent. The man mirrored him down to his louder gulp, which was difficult to achieve with a mere splash wetting his glass.

“We never— _never_ —admitted anyone of that name at our border. I’ve seen the records. I can recite them for you, if you like.”

“Pah! What kind of proof is it to hear you—”

Mycroft leaned back in his chair and settled his forearms precisely along the arms of his chair, his shirt cuffs aligning with the edge of the upholstery, his jacket sleeves aligned with the wood. “Yaropolk Yuriev. Farid Nekrasov. Mstislav Voronkov. Lima Yermakova.” He could see the calculations on the man’s face. How fast could he have made up names? How likely was it that he could make up names that just happened to sound like relatives of the victims? Even if he’d just memorised the names of the victims, was that not terrifying in and of itself? Mycroft began to speed up, allowing his speech to slur as a sacrifice on the altar of intimidation. “Susanna Komarova, Yolonda Artimieva, Murat Bulgakov, Leo Vavarov…”

“These names mean nothing! Anyone can come up with a list that does _not_ include a thing!”

“Yes, that is certainly a point.”

 

Round… five?:

“I’ve never liked Russkim Standartom.”

“Then why have you been plying me with your second-best?” Mycroft asked reasonably, blinking at the bleary view before him.

His companion laughed, and reached across to slap Mycroft’s knee. “I’m sorry, my friend. Let me make it up to you. My comrades are waiting for me downstairs, and the groom has brought his family’s vodka for the wedding toast—three cases of it. Let us go and see how many bottles are left.”

“Knowing I’d never accept tea in a hotel bar, imported Russian vodka is far—”

“Let me help you up, Mr. Holmes. You seem a little unsteady.”

 

Round…something:

“Absolutely not. No. Nyet. _V pervonachal'nom spiske Elo dazhe ne bylo pyatiletnego srednego dlya Fishera, i masterstvo Kasparova nikogda ne prevzoshlo. Eto nepravdopodobnoye sravneniye, chtoby pretendovat' na odin teoreticheskiy analiz, kotoryy ne byl otmechen lyubitelem do 19 let polnogo gospodstva. YA slishkom uvazhayu yego kar'yeru, chtoby popytat'sya sopernichat' s nim_ 1 _…_ ”

He kept the argument going, grabbing glasses, cocktail napkins, paper umbrellas, cigarette butts, and other bar detritus to demonstrate his point, redrawing the board on the back of a menu when the one drawn in condensation on the bar itself became too smeared to see. When his new best friend had ordered a second pilsner, having dumped half of his first into a floral arrangement behind the head table, Mycroft slipped a hand into his pocket and tapped in the code to text for backup.

One of his audience took point, standing in for his AWOL leader, announcing in loud Russian: “Our British friend has an empty glass! Bring the bottle!”

 _Bollocks_.

 

Round and round and round the room went:

He’d been left at the bar by himself, and was trying to straighten his tie using his reflection in the glass bottle in front of him. His efforts were hampered by the fact that the bottle seemed to have a bend in it, which he wasn’t sure he believed, and the frost on the glass wouldn’t be brushed off. He made do with his shadow. Someone staggered into the bar beside him, swore loudly in Russian about the height of the disreputable British, to which Mycroft explained that the average heights of men in Russia and England were both 175.3cm. This was violently disputed, even more violently so when Mycroft stood up to illustrate that that measurement was only the _average_ , but by then the bride had started crying about having married a man three centimetres below the average, and Mycroft sat down again to pour her a drink from the crooked bottle in front of him. Which actually _was_ crooked.

 

Round and round the mulberry patch the monkey chased the weasel…

 

“What do you mean?” Greg Lestrade asked.

“I _mean_ …that Ai should not get behind the hweel of an automobile.”

“Didn’t you have a driver tonight?”

“Nehoh.”

There were diphthongs, and then there were Drunk High-Class Mycroft Diphthongs. They were vowels that had strong opinions: they were not friends, and they wanted as little to do with each other as they could get. They were vowels in open war with each other, and with every pure sound in the English language. For tuppence, they’d drag the consonants down with them.

“Ai had a meeting. Upstairs. Tonight. In the hotel.” Each phrase was distinct, an answer to some interrogation going on in Mycroft’s brain that no one else could hear. Maybe it was the diphthongs skipping the consonants and taking the war straight to the sentence level. “And it was adjourned. Down here. To the reception.” Mycroft paused to pick a speck of lint from the lapel of his dinner jacket. “Where Ai became…inebriated.”

“You mean you’re drunk,” Greg said flatly.

“Quaite.”

“You’re not faking this.”

“Nehoh.”

“You really are drunk.”

“Am Ai not speaking clearly, Despector Intective?” Mycroft frowned slightly, his gaze dropping from Greg’s face. “Dinspector Etect… Lllestr…Greg?”

Greg grinned. “No, not really, but that’s okay. I speak drunk fluently. I even speak drunk Mycroft.”

“Your mother must be thrilled.”

“I don’t think she actually knows.”

“Greg. If Ai was your mother, Ai would be thrilled simply knowing you.”

It was meant as a compliment. He knew there was one in there. But then there was the problem of what the words meant. “So… if you were my mother, you think there’s a chance you might not have known me, and just knowing me at all would be a thrill—”

Mycroft flung up a hand, turning his face away and closing his eyes. “No, no, you know how I detest conversation about the past—”

“You… _don’t_ ,” Greg interrupted, his words slow and loud and firm. “That is such utter bullshit. Ninety percent of your _job_ is learning from history, which you have to talk about, and surveillance, some in photographic form, which is obviously past tense. You just say that when you want to distract people from something. Like when you’ve said something ‘ _schewpid_ ’.”

Mycroft gaped at him, his mouth opening and closing silently. Stunning Mycroft Holmes into silence was a pleasure, and not as rare as his colleagues might believe. An off-footed Mycroft was utterly adorable, in Greg’s view. “Be that as it may. Ai should like to leave this place. And the sooner, the better.”

“So we’ll just…get up and leave,” Greg said, shaking his head in confusion.

“Ai’m not sure that is a good idea.” He pressed the tips of two fingers to his lips briefly.

Greg wasn’t sure if it was a signal or a natural gesture, and what it meant, whatever it was. He hazarded a guess. “You…think you might be sick?”

Mycroft nodded calmly, reaching to pick up the tumbler of clear liquid on the table in front of him. Greg could see the oily sheen of alcohol sliding on top of the water, all of it colourless. Greg reached to set the flat of his hand over it, pressing it back down to the table. “Oh, no no no—”

“Excuse me,” Mycroft said firmly, rocking to one side and pulling the glass away from Greg’s reach. “Do credit me with a little common sense.” He raised the glass to his lips and tilted it up, catching Greg’s eye over the rim. It took two whole seconds for Greg to realise that Mycroft’s lips never parted. The glass clunked back down on the bar.

“Why’d you do that?”

“Because mai friend is returning. He’s behind you, constable.”

Greg looked up into the bar’s mirror and his eyes went wide. He whirled, and Mycroft could feel Greg’s heart pounding from the next stool over. “I, uh, hello, President Pu—”

“Ai am afraid Ai must take mai leave of you, my dearest comrade,” Mycroft said abruptly, sliding carefully down off of his stool and hanging onto the bar while it tried to launch itself on a whirling tour of the room. It took effort, but he managed to keep anyone from noticing that it had tried to fly away. “Ai hope it has been an instructive evening for you.”

“But you never—”

“Ah, ah.” Mycroft tipped his head with a smile, raising one finger. “Never. Not on a first date, certainly.”

The man recoiled from Mycroft, looking him up and down. “Excuse me?”

“Ai very much doubt it. Greg, to the car.”

Greg scooped Mycroft’s hand around his arm. “Cab.”

“Yes. To the cabochon. Why are we riding home in a cabochon? That makes no sense.”

 

1 Elo's original list didn't even include a five-year average for Fischer, and Kasparov's mastery has never been surpassed. It is not a valid comparison to claim one theoretical analysis by an unrated amateur to 19 years of complete domination. I have too much respect for his career to seek to rival him.


End file.
